VANCOUVER — One day, it may be mandatory to take a course in aboriginal history and culture to graduate from university in B.C.

It’s a step the University of Winnipeg has already taken. Starting next year, every undergraduate at that institution and at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., will have to take at least one indigenous studies course. There are several courses to choose from and the total number of credits required to graduate does not change.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that education is key to reconciliation and recommended a course in aboriginal history and culture for all students of social work, medicine, nursing, law and journalism.

In B.C., younger students will also soon be educated in indigenous knowledge because the kindergarten to Grade 12 curriculum is being revamped to include specific instruction about residential schools as well as indigenous content throughout.

William Lindsay, Simon Fraser University’s director of the office for aboriginal peoples, said the possibility of a mandatory indigenous studies course being required is being discussed both at SFU and on a provincial inter-university panel of aboriginal leaders.

“It’s an idea whose time has come,” Lindsay said. “It does take quite a bit of time and work to see these kinds of ideas to fruition, but we’ve started that conversation here to see if we can make it work.”

An SFU working group has started exploring the issue.

“When it was first raised, there was some resistance to the idea, ... from senior administration feeling that they weren’t totally against it, but that it had to be done right. The wrong way to do it would be to just make a sudden announcement and mandate that this had to be done. In the interim, we’ve been exploring different ways to do it,” Lindsay said.

The student society has also been consulted.

“If (the student society) was willing to support it, that would give it a bit of a push,” Lindsay said. “It’s in the news and people, I believe, are supportive of this nationally, provincially and at our university.”

There are two ways of adding aboriginal content: by mandating a specific course or by adding such content throughout courses in all faculties.

At the University of British Columbia, the school is actively considering how to provide indigenous content to different disciplines in a way that is effective and relevant, said Linc Kesler, associate professor of English and in the First Nations and Indigenous Studies program.

“We are not at the moment convinced that a single course is the best approach, or one that can be implemented effectively for 9,000-plus students a year, though that is a model that may work at other, and particularly smaller, institutions,” Kesler said. “Some of us — and I for one — have experience at other institutions that have instituted requirements, and can attest that some models work well, and others not. The design and implementation are both key to any such requirements fulfilling their commitments.”

Instead, the university’s aboriginal strategic plan implementation committee has started a subcommittee to work on different ways to approach the issue. Daniel Justice, professor and chairman of the First Nations and Indigenous Studies program, heads up that committee.

“There are lots of discussions underway about ensuring that all students have a robust and thoughtful understanding of Indigenous issues, but there’s no consensus about the best approach,” Justice said. “But we’re undertaking a substantive analysis of best practices and meaningful approaches that demonstrate real and not just anecdotal success.”

UBC has a foundations indigenous studies course and website (indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca) that is a resource for students and the public for local, regional, national and even global Indigenous concerns and contexts, Justice said.

There are about 120 courses at SFU that have significant indigenous content in faculties ranging from business to criminology or health sciences. Several of those could fit a general course requirement about indigenous culture and history, Lindsay said.

Lindsay is part of a provincial I-LEAD group, which is made up of indigenous leaders at B.C.’s public post-secondary institutions. He said the group has discussed the idea already and will probably discuss it further when it next meets in April at SFU.

Faculties of education in B.C. already require students to learn aboriginal content.

UBC also has a mandatory course about aboriginal rights and treaties for all law students and another mandatory indigenous course for audiology students, while midwifery students have aboriginal content in some of their courses.

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